


Come A Little Closer

by TheNightComesDown



Category: The Who (Band), classic rock - Fandom
Genre: Classic Rock, Cohabitation, Dogs, England (Country), M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-28
Updated: 2019-07-28
Packaged: 2020-07-23 23:08:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20016298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheNightComesDown/pseuds/TheNightComesDown
Summary: In response to an anon request for John x Male!Reader; John goes out for a walk early in the morning, and comes home to find you awake and waiting on him.





	Come A Little Closer

**Author's Note:**

> Story isn't historically accurate, but is meant to take place between tour legs in May of 1980.

On a cool morning in May, a heavy fog covered the grounds of Quarwood House. In the warm confines of the kitchen, you were elbow-deep in soapy dishwater, washing plates from last night’s dinner. The thick, white blanket of mist obstructed your view out the kitchen window, so you didn’t see the shaggy four-legged figure slinking towards the house until it was just a few yards away. Fitz Perfectly, your partner’s sweet, grey-brown wolfhound, made his presence known by releasing a long, low howl, which cut through the soft hum of the record playing in the next room.

“Silly old pup,” you murmured to yourself, wiping the last dish dry. “What are those two doing up so early?” In answer, the side door opened, admitting one freakishly large dog and his owner – your partner, Who bassist John Entwistle. John’s hair, gently receding and beginning to grey at his temples, was slicked back, damp from the chilly morning walk, and his cheeks were pink from the cold. When he saw you standing at the sink, his stopped in his tracks; he hadn’t expected you to be awake yet. 

Fitz pushed past John and made a beeline for his food and water dishes tucked into the kitchen corner, leaving muddy paw prints all over the tiled floor. The large dog proceeded to shake the dew from his fur, splashing the back of your trousers with droplets of water. 

“Oh, Fitz,” John scolded gently, slipping out of his grass-stained loafers and into the kitchen. “You just _had_ to do that, didn’t you?” Bending forward at the waist, John scratched the top of his dog’s head, directly between his ears, which only encouraged Fitz to shake more. Now, the water was dripping down the fronts of the lower cabinets; you couldn’t help but laugh. 

“Sorry, love,” John apologized, standing back up. He came up behind you and pressed a gentle kiss to the back of your neck. His beard, always well-kempt, grazed your skin. Your shoulders rose up reflexively, in an attempt to protect yourself from being tickled. 

“Easy there,” John chuckled, reaching up to massage your neck and shoulders. You leaned into his touch, and released a series of satisfied groans as he hit all the places your back tended to hurt. When his hands grew tired, he kindly adjusted the collar of your shirt and gave your shoulders one last affectionate squeeze. 

“Why are you up so early?” you inquired, stripping off your rubber gloves and hanging them over side of the sink. “The sun’s barely out. I’m surprised to see you up.” 

John only grunted in response; he certainly wasn’t a morning person. In fact, some of his friends jokingly referred to him as ‘the vampire’ because of his aversion to being awake during the day. All the band’s shows were in the evening, and John and his bandmates often stayed up into the wee hours of the morning in celebration after a show. Now that he was home from tour, he went to bed around the same time as you, but he still woke up well after 10 most days; it seemed that he was trying to catch up on all the sleep he had missed while touring. 

“Alright, then,” you sighed, realizing he wouldn’t be sharing the reason for his early morning stroll. “What’ll you have for breakfast?” 

“You don’t need to make me breakfast,” the bleary-eyed man protested, opening cupboards and digging around for the round metal container of rolled oats. “I can do my own porridge. I’m 36 years old, after all.” Now that your hands were dry, you crossed the kitchen and wrapped your arms around John’s middle. He was fairly slender, but had gained weight in the last year or so; you hummed contentedly at how comfortable it was to be close to him, now that he was softer. He’d been skin and bones like his bandmate Pete as a young man – but this bit of extra padding suited him well. 

“I know you _can_ make it yourself, but I _want_ to do it,” you said in a muffled voice. You’d tucked your face between John’s shoulder blades and rested your cheek against his back. “You’re only home for a few more days before you’re out on tour again. Let me do nice things for you while I can.” 

“People accuse you of being a house-husband for a reason,” John muttered, setting the container of oats on the counter. He conceded to your request, with one stipulation: “’S’long as your put enough brown sugar in it, I suppose I could let you do it up for me.” He set his large, warm hands over yours, which were clasped together just above his belt. “We’ll wait until after we’ve read the paper for breakfast, though.” 

“Deal,” you agreed, giving him a squeeze before releasing him to start a pot of coffee. If he was going to be up at 6:00AM, you knew there was no way he’d be doing it without a solid dose of caffeine. Of all the substances he could be using, you preferred for it to be caffeine. 

From the pocket of his denim jacket, John pulled a pack of cigarettes, one of which he slipped between his lips. He passed the other to you, which you tucked behind your ear to save for later; you had an aversion to smoking in the kitchen that John didn’t share. The scrape of a match head sounded, and shortly after, a curl of smoke wafted up above his head towards the ceiling. 

“So, what’s on the schedule for today, then?” he asked, snatching up the paper from where he’d set it down on the counter upon entering the house. His walk with Fitz had taken him into Stow-on-the-Wold, just under a mile away, where he’d picked up the morning paper. Typically, you would have taken the dog out early, and John elected to walk Fitz around midnight, but for some reason, today he had decided to do both. 

“Nothing except my crossword. We’ve got the whole day together, unless you’ve made other plans,” you told him, following as John padded in his stocking feet towards the front sitting room. Where much of the house was dark without turning on the lights, this parlour had large windows that let in plenty of sunlight, especially in the morning. John took his place on the far side of one leather sofa, leaving you plenty of space to flop down on your belly beside him. 

The click-clack of claws against the hardwood sounded as Fitz, now much drier than he had been, joined you in the sitting room. He took his usual place on the rug in front of the sofa, turning in a few circles before lying down. You extended an arm and rested it against the dog’s back, which Fitz seemed to find comforting. These days, he was most content when he was just lazing around with you and John, the people he loved most in the world. At night, the aging pup even insisted upon curling up at your feet on the bed, all 150 furry pounds of him. 

With your head resting securely in John’s lap and your feet propped up on the far arm of the sofa, you closed your eyes for a short rest. Your partner traded his finished cigarette for a pair of reading glasses, which had been left beside the ashtray on the mahogany end table beside the sofa. Paper rustled as John flipped past the front page; he wasn’t interested in stories on terrorism or the likes; he read the paper purely for enjoyment. Once he’d settled in, his fingers began to rake gently through your coarse hair, and his low voice filled the room with updates on local sport – the football season was coming to a close, after all, and neither of you had had much time to keep up with the results of matches in the past few days. When John came home for tour breaks, you tended to ignore everything but each other for the first day or two. 

“If you keep this up, I’ll not let you go back on tour,” you mumbled, angling your head to allow John to run his fingernails along an unreached area of scalp. “Do you read Pete the news every morning, then, and play with Roger’s hair, or am I something special?” John snorted at that suggestion, which roughly translated to ‘I certainly do not’. The two of you lapsed into a comfortable silence for long enough that you’d nearly fallen asleep by the time he decided to start talking again. 

“One of these days, I’ll be home for good, you know,” John murmured, licking his finger before turning the page. “Then it’ll just be us; you and me, and good old Fitz, of course.” You propped yourself up on your elbows and regarded John with confusion, waiting for an explanation; he ignored your searching stare and pretended to skim through the adverts. 

“That’s all you’re going to say?” you questioned, incredulous. “John, what in the hell does that mean? _‘Home for good?’_ But…you love touring.” 

“Eh, touring’s overrated,” John replied with a shrug. His nonchalance shocked you – playing in front of an audience was what John loved most in the world. “Pete’s too busy trying to kill ‘imself to perform properly, and Roger’s tired. Only a matter of time now before we call it quits.” His voice was calm and even, but you knew better than to believe that he wasn’t upset. 

“Pete’s drinking again?” This came as a real surprise to you, because Karen, Pete’s wife of more than a decade, had mentioned her husband’s sobriety the last time you’d been to their Twickenham house for dinner – no more than two weeks ago. 

“He never quit,” John answered, rolling his eyes. “Maybe he can fool Karen, but not me. The man sweats brandy.” His hand came to rest over your spine, where his fingers tapped rhythms out against the bumps of your vertebrae; it seemed to keep him calm, so you let him continue. “He’s pissed onstage every night. Regularly heckles the audience, forgets the words to his own songs; shouts at the band onstage, too. S’been like this one or twice before, but it’s been worse since…” 

_Since Keith_. He couldn’t even say the man’s name out loud, and it broke your heart. John had never said it out loud, but you knew the man well enough; he was afraid that if he acknowledged Keith’s death, there would be no chance that this was all just a terrible mistake, or a bad dream. 

It had been just over a year and a half since Keith Moon – the legendary ‘Loon’ of the rock world – had died suddenly (but not unexpectedly) of a drug overdose, and mere mention of the man still caused John to scurry back into his emotional shell. They had been the best of friends, after all; Keith was John’s confidante in all matters, and John was the voice of reason when the drummer was considering whether or not to send a building up in a fiery ball of black powder at the end of a night on the town. 

With what seemed like an enormous amount of effort, you pulled yourself up from the sofa and tucked yourself beneath John’s arm. His beard, coffee-black with the occasional fleck of silver, scraped against your temple as you settled in as close as possible to him. No words needed to pass between you; John was comforted by your willingness to be present with him in his grief. 

Fitz lifted his shaggy head from its resting place on his front paws, sensing a change in the atmosphere of the room. John reached a hand out, and the dog nuzzled his snout into the bassist’s open palm in a gesture of affection. As John’s companion of many years, Fitz was familiar with his master’s emotions. Even subtle differences in John’s expressions or tone of voice were enough to cause the perceptive wolfhound alarm. John gazed lovingly down at his giant of a dog and gave him a good scratch beneath his chin. 

“I’ll be aw’right, old boy,” John promised, releasing Fitz to lie back down. Angling his face towards you, John pressed a kiss to your forehead before wrapping his now unoccupied arm around your shoulder. He held you firmly against his warm chest, as though you might slip through his grasp if he didn’t hold tight enough. With your ear pressed against his breastbone, you heard the heavy thrum of John’s heart beating rhythmically in his chest; the sound was your reminder that even in his moments of intense grief, when he could do nothing but stare vacantly ahead and smoke his way through an entire pack of cigarettes, he was alive.


End file.
